“When I looked at the course this morning, Ted was one of my favourites for this race,” explained bronze medal winner Aksel Lund Svindal after the Super G from the World Championships in Schladming. With HEAD World Cup Rebels taking the first clean sweep of the podium at these championships, Ligety took Gold, Gauthier de Tessieres the silver and Aksel Lund Svindal took the bronze. After the race Rainer Salzgeber, the Racing Manager for the HEAD World Cup Rebels, said, “After the bad day yesterday, this was really great!”

Ligety is known as one of the great Giant Slalom skiers; four wins in five races this season emphasizes this, yet before this race, his best Super G result had been second in 2009. “My form this year has been pretty good in Super G,” referring to his two fourth place results and a sixth at Kitzbuehel. With few gliding sections, Ligety knew he was in with a chance: “I took a lot of risks. Figured if I could go as clean as possible it would be a good strategy and this proved to be the right way to go,” the newly crowned World Champion explained.

Gauthier de Tessieres so nearly did not make the race. Not originally selected for the French team, the injury to Johan Clarey gave de Tessieres the call up and he took his chance with both hands. “I had such great energy on the start. During inspection I saw this was a great course for a GS racer. I was very motivated and my coach told me to take a chance. I deserve this medal after 10 years on the World Cup and having a lot of injuries. I am really happy to have won a medal in Super G,” explained de Tessieres.

For Aksel Lund Svindal, this was, he happily explained, his worst result of the season in Super G so far – third place! “It was a rough run but I fought hard so I am pleased.” Although he had been aiming for gold at start, Svindal was happy to have won a medal, the tenth of his career so far. The course he felt, despite going 22, was in good shape, but “the snow was not as hard as I wanted: it was rougher for each racer, the limited visibility made it hard to see what was coming.”

Mathias Mayer made it four HEAD World Cup Rebels in the top five with fifth place and Georg Streitberger was tenth crowning a great day for HEAD.